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Some things exist solely because they can. The new 2048 game (US$0.99) for your iOS Today view isn't a particularly impressive implementation of the game or a great step forward in technology, but darned if we weren't excited to see someone do something novel and fun with widgets.

Apple introduced application extensions in iOS 8. These are bundles of code you can add to run in the Today center, as activities in other apps, or as photo editing tools. Developer Minghui Li decided to implement 2048 as a widget.

Is this a particularly good implementation? Well, no. Playing directly in the app is far more fun -- and yes, you must install the standalone app to get access to the widget, and then use the Extensions editor in the Today view to install it. Having to use the arrow buttons you see in the widget screenshot are a pain. In the app, you can use standard drag gestures for much better interaction.

But hell, if we wanted a good 2048 game, there are lots of other choices on the market. "2048 in Widget!" (exclamation point in original title) really is one of those things you install on your iPhone so you can show it off to other Apple fans and earn the disdain of Android users.

We're still having fun with it, but it's probably leaving our TUAW phone in a week or two.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>2048AndroidAppleGamesiOSIOS 8iPhonereviewSciTechToday ViewTUAWTue, 25 Nov 2014 20:00:00 ESThttp://www.tuaw.com/2014/11/21/airparrot-2-launches-introduces-chromecast-support-and-bluetoot/http://www.tuaw.com/2014/11/21/airparrot-2-launches-introduces-chromecast-support-and-bluetoot/http://www.tuaw.com/2014/11/21/airparrot-2-launches-introduces-chromecast-support-and-bluetoot/#commentsAirParrot enables you to stream your OS X desktop to AirPlay destinations like Apple TV. If that functionality sounds a bit familiar, it might be because Apple added desktop mirroring to OS X a while after AirParrot first debuted. AirParrot managed to survive that "sherlocking" by providing a feature set that included app- and window-specific control, letting you fine tune exactly what material was streamed.

Now entering its 2.0 launch, AirParrot introduces numerous new features including an upgraded UI, Chromecast support and Bluetooth discovery. The new version also provides audio-only streaming, supporting AirPort express destinations and a limited collection of home theater systems.

AirParrot 2 is now available, at $14.99 for one license, $62.99 for 5. Existing users can upgrade for the first week of sales for 1/3rd off (check your registered email for a coupon code), about $9.99 a copy or so. To learn more about the upgrade, visit the Squirrels product page.

Earlier this year, on the recommendation of former TUAW lead Megan Lavey Heaton, I gave iBooks the heave-ho and installed Marvin on my iPad. A US$3.99 app, Marvin, Megs insisted, was the ebook reader I'd been waiting for, and one that I could easily fall in love with.

She was right.

Feature rich, beautifully realized, Marvin quickly migrated to my iPad home page, and from there, onto my launch bar. It offered all the reading control I needed to immerse myself in stories. There are too many incredibly useful features to mention, so go look at the product page.

Among my favorites are the slide-to-dim when moving from a bright room to a dark one, perfect font adjustments, progress tracking, and so forth. It's an absolutely fantastic app for reading DRM-free EPUB. Marvin does not support Mobi or PDF reading at this time.

When developer Kristian Guillaumier approached me to take an early look at his new ereader app Gerty, I was surprised. Marvin is excellent. What more needed to be said or developed in this space? Malta-based Guillaumier explained his motivation. Over time, Marvin had grown and grown based on user requests, created a very purposeful code base that really couldn't be re-directed the way he envisioned. Although Marvin has in no way reached its end of life, Gerty would re-imagine this space for a new audience.

To Guillaumier, reading wasn't just an end-point, it was the beginning of an experiential process. To him, books involve the space, the reader, the learning, and the environment as well as the material on the rendered page. Gerty, his new passion project, would allow users to bring those elements into their books, creating annotations and journals related to book content.

Users could annotate texts, add tagging, detail their progress, and more. Whether in the class room or on a real-world journey, the greater book experience could be collected and incorporated to build a richer ebook library.

Like Marvin, Gerty (free with $3.99 IAP to unlock all features) is packed with product highlights. Guillaumier has spent a lot of extra effort adding these in with great subtlety. You discover items almost accidentally, as the interface graciously defers to your natural interactions, offering features you hadn't thought to look for yourself. A tap on the page brings up a set of tools for adjusting your presentation. Another tap dismisses it. A drag on the book overview screen reveals statistics about your reading sessions. Little quotes here and there enliven the interface, emphasizing a profound connection between reading and the love of books.

In terms of visual design, Gerty puts Marvin to shame. When using the app, I kept wishing more and more features would migrate back so Marvin could share the beautiful menus and font choices. Every menu, every presentation, every feature has been enhanced for visual clarity. While I may not agree with all the choices made, it's clear that Gerty was grown to put design first. (Guillaumier assures me that the improved Gerty design sensibilities will migrate back to Marvin over time, particularly in the upcoming Marvin 3.0 update.)

One of the features I much prefer in Marvin is its traditional page by page presentation. Gerty defaults to scrolling chapters. This is an ebook reading style that I acknowledge is quite popular, even though it's not really my thing. There are elements that are still being developed, and others that will likely change as users gets their hands on the app and start offering feedback.

For me, I haven't quite decided whether I'm now primarily a Marvin user or a Gerty user. I suspect over time I'm going to begin exploring more of the Gerty-style journaling features on my iPhone. Marvin remains, however, my ereader app of choice on my iPad. I'm really glad I have access to both.

When it comes to the iPhone 6 Plus, relatively few case options were available at launch, especially for buyers with a long list of must-have requirements. As one of the TUAW staffers put it, companies who pride themselves on making the best and most resilient cases for the iPhone were in no position to guess those new iPhone dimensions in order to have design and manufacturing completed and new cases ready for launch day.

I opted on the iPhone 6 Plus because it seemed the best compromise between tablet computing and an actual phone. I must say, it's lived up to that promise extremely well. It's beautiful to read on, even if it will never really match up the full iPad air experience, and it's just small enough that I can stick it in a handbag and chat on it. And thank heavens for speakerphone!

I wanted a case to support reading, video, browsing, email, and games. The Verus wallet, which was retailing over at Amazon for under $20 (the price varies by seller and availability, and is currently selling closer to $40), seemed to offer the key features I needed: a protective front, a built-in stand, a clip-in protective body, and access to all key features even when closed. After spending hours hunting for a portfolio-style unit, I plunked down my credit card, crossed my fingers, and ordered.

The case arrived a couple of weeks after the phones started shipping, and quite honestly, it does a pretty good job protecting my unit. The transparent plastic insert offers a great fit to the phone, and I have no problem accessing every button, toggle, and camera.

That said, the portfolio materials aren't leather (didn't expect them to be). They're barely leatherette. A self-respecting Nauga would look amiss at the stitched-pleather quality, which quickly crinkled and bent at the edges, especially at the weakest part of the case, near the back-side camera. Other than that, I've had no damage issues or fraying.

The built-in stand is pretty shoddy but it sort of gets the job done. This involves bending the back along its center line to stand the phone up in landscape orientation. As I use the case more and more, this bend point is getting weaker and weaker, so the phone, which started with a nice 135 degree tilt for movie viewing, often slips down closer to 160 degrees or so. There's no natural "catch" to keep it from sliding, so you either have to push it back or prop it up.

I wasn't particularly interested in the built-in storage (a bills case suitable for US currency and three card slots) but they work just fine as long as you don't put too much stuff in them. A magnet pair keeps the case closed on the side (you can see these at the picture at the top of this post) and is probably one of my favorite features. The front panel folds back well for making calls.

I'm not dissatisfied by the case, especially given its relatively low cost. It's doing a great job protecting my phone, and that's my first concern, especially since regularly I stick phones into bags along with keys, tools, and other gadget unfriendly items. For what it is, the Verus isn't an amazing case, but it's a decent one and will probably suit the needs of many other new iPhone 6 Plus owners.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>accessoriescaseiPhoneiPhone 6 Plusiphone 6 plus casereviewverusWed, 15 Oct 2014 12:30:00 ESThttp://www.tuaw.com/2014/09/22/waiting-on-those-6-plus-cases/http://www.tuaw.com/2014/09/22/waiting-on-those-6-plus-cases/http://www.tuaw.com/2014/09/22/waiting-on-those-6-plus-cases/#comments
As TUAW editor-in-chief Victor Agreda, Jr. put it, my new iPhone 6 Plus is a dropportunity waiting to happen. I've put in an order for a new case to protect my baby (review to follow when it finally shows up.) Until then, I've had to make do, creating the abomination of style shown in the above photo. It's basically a padded mailing envelope, Velcro, bandage tape, and a hole I can stick my finger through for Touch ID. It's nothing to look at, but my post-apocalyptic iPhone survived a rather intense day of biking at Denver's Cherry Creek State Park without incident.

It's a bit surprising how few 5.5-inch cases were ready for sale at launch. As fellow 6 Plus owner Steve Sande put it, "This leads me to believe that they either didn't think it was really going to happen or didn't think they were going to sell very well. Wrong on both counts. Now they're all behind the 8-ball on getting these things cranked out in quantity."

So what have you done about your personal 6 Plus? Do you have a case already? Or have you ordered one? What cases do you love (or think you'll love) and which ones are must-avoids? Drop a note in the comments and share your thoughts and buying tips.

While many people may love the "recent contacts" feature in the iOS 8 app switching jump screen, I personally don't. Showing a bunch of names and faces each time I want to move from app-to-app isn't my cup of tea as I find it visually distracting.

Fortunately, there is a way to disable this new feature if you're so inclined. Hop into Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and scroll down to the Contacts section. Toggle the Show In App Switcher setting to off, as in the screen shot at the top of this post. Doing so removes the "quick access" icons from the top of your app switcher window.

Once disabled, those icons will no longer appear, simplifying your switcher to a more iOS-7-like appearance.

TUAW love Colonel Sanders and kernels of popcorn, but as far as colonels and kernels go, you probably don't want a kernel panic on your brand new iPhone 6. Reader Jason Lang sent in this screen of sadness.

Normally, iOS devices automatically reboot on kernel panics but this one did not. I wrote back and suggested Jason try rebooting. A hard boot involves pressing and holding the Sleep and Home buttons until the screen clears and the little white Apple appears. Unfortunately, this didn't fix Jason's problem nor did trying to restore through iTunes.

After consulting with a variety of developers, I ended up recommending that Jason take the unit over to an Apple store for replacement. (Whether any stores will have stock to do replacements at the moment is an open question.) Best guess on the table, courtesy of developer Sam Marshall, is a bad chip out of the factory, "extremely rare but it can happen," he told me.

How did your iPhone delivery go? Add a comment below and tell us all about your new baby phone. And don't forget: the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are dropportunities waiting to happen (TM Victor Agreda), so take care with your gadget!

Unlike the iPhone and the iPad, which created entirely new design spaces, the Apple Watch looks to be following the market, not leading it. We've seen the Fitbit. We've seen the Pebble. We've seen Google Glass. So why should we care in the slightest about the Apple Watch?

The Apple Watch represents both a mix of strengths and omissions. It combines features from three exciting markets that deserve representation in the Apple line, adding daily contexts that continue to move users away from screens and into real life. The Mark 1 unit may not fulfill all the possibilities that these technologies can offer, but I see it as a bold, strong move into a new product category.

Mobile keeps changing the ways we relate to technology. The Pebble showed us what a heads-up (wrist-up?) notifier looks like. It offers a way to move computing away from screens and into the context of the real world. I hesitate to use the word "footprint" since the metaphor is even more strained than the ones I normally misuse, but the Pebble computing footprint is tiny. With just a twist of the wrist, it enables "glance" computing. The wrist-based Pebble offers always-available integration with our digital life stream.

Google Glass introduced wearable ubiquitous computing. Its natural-language, voice-driven command system enables users to request information, perform searches, and interact with an enhanced reality. While the new Apple Watch won't overlay your visual field with wikipedia pages, its Siri integration enables you to use voice searches on the go.

A few caveats however. First, iOS 8 already supports "Hey Siri" on your mobile devices -- so long as you're tethered to a power source. "Hey Siri" is the "Okay Glass" prompt for hands-free Siri queries in iOS 8 and later. Second, you need to push a button on the Apple Watch to access that Siri functionality. You must press and hold the new "digital crown" (read iPod-touch-wheel-for-the-2010's) to activate Siri interaction. And, of course, the Apple Watch isn't going to float any virtual reality displays in front of you.

The Fitbit for all its flaws and reliability issues went down another path. Its the ever vigilant monitor that watches our movement and our sleep, that tells us how our body's activities relate to our goals. It brings a ubiquitous connection between what we do and how we reflect on those choices. While the iPhone 5s offered some minor mirrors of that functionality with step tracking, it demanded a greater connection between portage and observation than most of us were willing to use.

The Apple Watch has a bigger wrist-print (there I go again with that metaphor thing) and you cannot use it 24 hours a day. It has to be charged on a daily basis (the charger coupler is cool) so it doesn't look like you'll be able to use it for sleep tracking, so don't expect it to act as a full time health tracker.

On the plus side, the Apple unit does include a heart rate monitor and pedometer, which are probably higher on the average Fit user's must-have list than sleep tracking. Despite this, sleep tracking is a big gap in the "help me track and tune my life" wish list for many potential customers.

Remember that the first generation iPhone had no 3G and the first generation iPad had no camera. Apple's quick refresh cycle (and excellent resell market) means these features can grow and evolve rapidly should the Apple Watch sell and find its niche.

The Apple Watch might not yet have its one "big idea" moment but it offers a lot of satisfying little ideas and for now that's probably enough.

On first looks, Kinetics from Evro Studio (free, paid level pack IAPs) should have been exactly the kind of puzzler game I love. It consists of a series of challenge packs you work through by connecting colored boxes to each other. Gameplay includes set move counts, no-pass boxes, and other obstacles you must surmount to progress.

Unfortunately, despite excellent UI design, I found the game play dull and unremarkable. The puzzles were tedious instead of fun. It felt more like filling out tax forms than entertainment.

Fortunately, the core game is free, enabling you to give it a try and see if it tickles your interest. It didn't do much for me.

If you were one of the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, all staying up late last night to pre-order an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, you probably noticed that the roll-out didn't proceed as smoothly as it might have, especially at the US store. With store-down notices going on significantly beyond the 12AM Pacific launch time, it was a mad scramble trying to get an early-shipped device. Outages were so bad that some people started hearing imaginary Mandarin audio tracks floating through their heads.

I quickly found out, as did many others, that the iOS-based Apple store app offered the best chance for a pre-order. I hopped in, fully intending to pick up a mid-range 64 GB Space Gray iPhone 6 Plus unit. This is what I call the "accountant's special", as it offers the best mix of subdued coloring and storage value. Apparently, nearly every one else in the Internets hoped to pick up exactly that model since it showed "not available" from the moment I finally got past the AT&T upgrade screen.

In fact, the only model I could order with a quick ship date was the 128GB Gold. I'm not terribly against the whole 128GB storage as I can basically put every bit of data I own on my phone along with the gross domestic data product of several small countries but the gold color, well, I'd like to think that I have, er, had, standards.

Ever since the gold iPhone 5s debuted, its taste level has been subject to debate. Caught between "shameful bling" and "understated elegance", there fewer people who can figuratively carry it off than people who literally carry it in their purse or pocket.

I know for sure that I'm not one of them. Sure, I'm trying to make the best of things -- I'm calling it "Fawkes" after the phoenix in Harry Potter, although I was tempted with "Deputy Parrish" for the ambiguously phoenix-y character on Teen Wolf -- but to me, gold color has always been something that happens to other people. People who live in Florida. Who have fabulous houses. Who drive nice cars and drink champagne. People to whom "lamé" is a metallic fabric and not an MP3 encoder.

Steve Sande tells me that he's about to sell his gold iPhone 5s to Gazelle, adding "I've hidden it in a Mophie case for a year". What do you think of the gold iPhone? Cast your vote in this poll and then drop a comment about how your pre-order went. What model and color did you go for? And when do you expect it to arrive or be ready for pickup?

The new "Baby Dolphin*" iPhone 6 Plus will ship with a 1920 x 1080 Retina HD pixel display on a 5.5" screen. Compared and contrasted to a 7" iPad mini with Retina display, with its 2048 x 1536 Retina pixels, the Baby Dolphin compares favorably.

It offers approximately 66% of the screen space but in a form factor that enables you to send and receive phone calls as well as read books more comfortably. As a point of comparison, my 960 x 640 pixel iPhone 4S with Retina display offers just under 20% of screen space plus is noticeably thicker than the new unit.

Here's a quick rundown of some basic specs, using the 7" Retina mini as a benchmark. Only pixels are compared, and the pixels per inch count varies between devices:

With a simple web search, you'll find a variety of conventional solutions for these situations. I prefer to close them automatically without interacting with pop-ups directly or force-quitting Safari. Here's where a simple AppleScript application can help.

I use AppleScript to tell Safari to "close window 1", i.e. the frontmost window. This dismisses the problematic window on my behalf. I have this script saved to an application (File > Export > File Format > Application) and have docked it for easy access. When bad windows open, my solution is just a click away.

Got another fix or an improvement to this one? Drop a note in the comments and share.

As the school year heads back into session, many students have a lot of new reading on their plate. Parents whose children struggle with assigned books might be considering ways to augment that material.

Over the summer, Amazon regularly offered to add Audible narrations to assigned reading titles for my kids. For example, I purchased E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime for US$9.99 (pre-tax) and picked up its companion audio track for just $4.99. The normal price is $9.95 on iTunes. The audio cassettes, incidentally, sell from $138.45, not including shipping. I needed to lend her my iPad 2 to access the Kindle app/voice integration (it is not available for releases that run on the original iPad), but on the whole it was a successful experiment.

With that experience in mind, I decided to investigate more automated solutions. Voice Dream Reader ($9.99, additional voices available with in-app purchases) represents one of the better-reviewed text-to-speech apps currently available in the App Store. I obtained a promo copy and tested out excerpts from several books.

At the suggestion of the developer, I tried both the default built-in voice and a purchased upgrade, the $4.99 Salli voice from Ivona. The upgraded voice was clearly superior to the default, with better intonation and inflection. And yet, despite that, each of the testers had difficulty listening to long-form reading material. No matter how excellent the synthesis, a lack of human performance really impacted the comprehension and enjoyment of text.

I suspect this is a learning process, and one that our short testing framework could not accommodate, as visually impaired readers do quite well with synthesized material. However, for augmenting reading for learning, my real-world trials had me more focused on the synthesis of the speech than its content. My testers agreed. For them, the mechanical dictation became a distraction rather than a supplement.

I found the app very well made. It easily imported the non-DRM ebooks I downloaded from Safari and added through Dropbox integration. Support for each book's table of contents made it simple to navigate to the portion I wanted to read, and word-by-word highlighting helped reinforce the content / audio integration.

I suspect Voice Dream would work best for short material and for those who have trained themselves to efficiently process automated speech. As for my commute and my children's reading, the Audible tracks remain the winners, but I'm glad I was able to give the app a good try. For those who can best take advantage of automated text-to-voice, it seems to offer a solid choice.

It's surprising how much I both love and am bothered by the new Hey Siri feature. It offers what's probably the best and the worst of all iOS 8 features at the same time. So what's this dichotomy? How can I be so split down the middle about this? Let me explain.

iOS 8's new "Hey Siri" offers a voice activated prompt. If you're driving and your iPhone is connected to a power source, or if your iPad is charging across the room, you can shout out "Hey Siri, set a timer for 3 minutes" and Siri will do exactly that. A few minutes later, your device will beep and you'll know to take the eggs off the stove.

"Hey Siri" is great for quick calculations ("What's 371 divided by four?"), for shazaaming ("What's that song?"), for requesting songs ("Play something by Josh Turner"), for directions ("How do I get to a gas station?") and so forth. The hands-free functionality is amazing.

At the same time, you have to be really really careful about where and when you deploy "Hey Siri". I can't tell you how many times I've been talking on my landline and Siri pipes up and offered to run a web search based on my current conversation. It's a little embarrassing when chatting but it can be quite serious in professional meetings or with privileged conversations such as in a medical setting.

Fortunately, you can easily disable voice-activated Siri. First, just unplug your device. "Hey Siri" is currently limited to power-tethered use. Second, you can override Siri by hopping into Settings > General > Siri > Voice Activation and toggle the option to OFF. This is a feature that really should have been placed into the Control Center -- I encourage you to file a feature request to put it there!

But once you're back away from those possibly awkward moments? Turn that feature right back on because Hey Siri is a real favorite, warts and all.

If you look around the OS X app store, you won't have much trouble finding any number of productivity management apps based on popular techniques like Pomodoro. We're big fans of these utilities here at TUAW. They transform your work into short manageable chunks, enabling you to return to work with renewed vigor and focus.

What caught our eye with Rest (US$4.99) was its coached breaks. Rest doesn't just tell you when to take a mental pause, it helps coordinate a short physical refresher with the cognitive one. That's a really clever twist for a crowd that might be a bit tomato-weary.

There currently just over a dozen different breaks in all, but that is plenty to for a normal workday. Perhaps the developer will offer more options in the future as app upgrades for greater variety over time. The breaks on offer are easy to do at your desktop and don't involve any special equipment.

The app is easy to use. It sits in your menu bar and you can adjust how long each work period and rest period should be. The audio tones were pleasant. The exercises were easy to follow. If you like this category of apps, Rest will easily fit into your work style.

After Kindle Unlimited launched today, we entered a lively debate in the TUAW backchannels about this new service. Nearly everyone agreed that Amazon had once again set a high bar for Apple to respond to, but not everyone was immediately ready to sign up for this monthly product that offers unlimited text and audio lending for US$10/month.

For the parents among us, our initial reaction was "Whoa! Let us go forth and save money!" Kelly Hodgkins, mother of many, became one of the earliest TUAW adopters of the service. Mike Rose, whose daughter has already spent $170 of gift cards on Summer reading, could immediately see the appeal.

Your $120 yearly membership (30 days free, cancel at any time) offers access to a library of 600,000+ titles, which sounds like a lot but may not include the books you specifically need to read. Of my children's Summer reading lists, not a single title was available through Unlimited.

I went through our purchases for the last 60 days and could not find any item we had bought included in the Unlimited library. These included EL Doctorow's "Ragtime", Sonia Nazario's "Enrique's Journey", Kazuhiro Fujitaki's "The Manga Guide to Electricity", Charbonneau's "Graduation Day", Kiera Cass's "The One", Tom Doyle's "American Craftsman", Robert Galbraith's "The Silkworm", among others -- a mix of required reading and fun.

After searching my recent transactions, it became clear to me how limited the library really is. I'm letting my credit card stay cool for now. And, of course, you don't get to "keep" any books you borrow -- even for DRM-values of "keep" in today's digital market.

For those with flexible reading tastes, the Kindle library has a lot going for it. You don't have to wait for ebooks the way you do at your local library. You can borrow more than one title a month, unlike the standard Prime benefit. Kindle Unlimited includes unlimited audio from "thousands of audiobooks", which is a godsend for commuters.

What do you think about Kindle Unlimited? Are you going to jump aboard? Or are you waiting for the library to expand to include more desirable reading material? Drop a comment and share.

What happens when a mostly female development team comes together to create an action-adventure game staffed entirely by female characters? Revolution 60 by Giant Spacekat (US$5.99/try-then-IAP-buy) happens. It's a touch-based iPad story-driven take on Heavy Rain and Mass Effect.

You play Holiday, an assassin faced with a more morally complex landscape than you normally encounter in gaming titles. Should Holiday support her friends or fix her attention on the mission? It's a little bit transgressive, a little bit feminist. The stakes are high.

I was particularly drawn to this title based on its feminine novelty. A mom to girls, I found the notion of a female actioner exciting. Although the reality was a little more boobs-and-bullets than can-do girl-power, I found Revolution 60 entertaining and well made.

The acoustics of the game are superb. iOS has a bit of a bad rep for users switching off sounds. Do that in Revolution 60 and you'll be missing out on one of the game's highlights -- a well designed audio system that really brings the game to life. It helps you feel the experience as well as see it.

The character graphics are really well done, built with full facial animation using the Unreal engine. Holiday's hair swings around as she walks, and her interaction with her world feels solid and multi-dimensional. The sets are nicely detailed, if a bit generically textured, and you feel immersed in an exciting drama.

Where the game fell flat for me was its combat system. Admittedly, I played on the easiest level in order to progress as quickly as possible. The touch-based fighting felt tedious and I never really enjoyed those moments.

However, the strength of the story outside of the combat kept me invested in following through with the adventure. The novelty of building emotional connections with characters provided the best part of the experience. The game offers excellent replay as your choices drive the story.

Revolution 60 (iTunes link is not yet live) will be released on July 24th. You can try the basic game for free. A single in-app purchase of $5.99 unlocks the the full title. Giant Spacekat will also sell a companion book, "Revolution 60: The Chessboard Lethologica" in the iBooks store (iTunes link, not yet live, $3.99).

The app is an outgrowth of Avatron's Air Display app. Air Display extends your computer's desktop to your iPad or iPhone to provide an extra screen. Air Stylus layers pressure-sensitive drawing on top of that display functionality. Not only can you view items on the secondary screen, you can draw on them too and in a meaningful way. Think of a Wacom tablet that you can place in your lap and draw onto, but one that shows the image you're drawing and not just a blank surface.

There were a few gotchas. First, for an app to work with Air Stylus, it must be pressure-ready. On the Mac, that means working with apps like Acorn, Pixelmator, Manga Studio 5, Art Range, Intensify Pro, Mischief, and Photoshop Elements. Acorn is a terrific app that I happened to have on my system available for testing. Avatron has posted Photoshop how-to for those who wish to follow through with frame buffers and GPU settings, but don't think that the app will produce out-of-the-box pressure input for all drawing apps.

Second, there is lag. Although a slight lag usually isn't a problem with Air Display -- especially when you're using the extra screen space for something not time critical such as Twitter -- when drawing, even a half-second of lag can really throw a wrench in things. This does not appear to be a problem for the artists highlighted in Avatron's shiny video and there were times in testing when reaction time was excellent, but at others I experienced a noticeable, albeit slight lag between drawing and the app responding. It was irritating.

Third, there is sensitivity. I encountered difficulty when trying to consistently draw a line that changed pressure. You can see a subset of my attempts recorded here. The video shows the Reflector capture session of my iPad Air as I used both the brush and pencil tools. Eventually, I learned to put a bit of pressure onto the stylus to get the sensitivity going and then back off or press harder. I am never going to be a calligrapher and the process of learning to draw with pressure using the stylus was harder than I expected.

I tested Air Stylus using a Wacom stylus, a Pogo Connect, and a cheap no-pressure stylus from the dollar store. The app worked well with all three. For pressure testing, I stuck with the Wacom as it was the only one that worked for those tests (Avatron plans to update its support for Pogo Connect soon).

While I personally found Air Stylus difficult to use gracefully, I did love how well I could zoom and pan to focus my drawing space exactly where and how I wanted it. I suspect many of my difficulties stem from my ham handed lack of any sophisticated drawing abilities.

I also liked how the desktop client offered to save my extra window state until I was ready to pick up and draw again. Unlike other screen extension apps, Air Stylus didn't revert my window configuration until I told it to. That's a great feature.

At US$20, Air Stylus isn't going to be an impulse buy for most people -- especially when you take the stylus and drawing app prerequisites into account. However, if you're a serious artist and have mad pressure-sensitive skills, I think the app has the potential to really grab you.

Be aware that the app is new and growing. Reaction on the App Store has been mixed. From an admittedly small sample, it's currently middling in ratings and has at least two very unhappy customers. I was more apparently impressed then they were, and I look forward to seeing how this app evolves.

Developer Matt Wiechec had a really positive attitude about our tongue-in-cheek feedback and responded with good news about future updates. "You nailed it in the audio clip Erica," he wrote. "We did test with women and did not see the severity of the issue as obvious as it is now. Voice recognition is based on real life audio samplings and while women are represented in our samples it looks like a certain higher frequency is poorly detected. I am looking into this and will issue an update ASAP. The good news is that this is addressable. I will keep you posted. Thank you very much for the feedback."

Today I've been reading rumors of new iPhones all over the interwebs. Everyone's talking about 3x resolutions and 1704 x 960 displays. Help me, Aunt TUAW -- is my Retina display doomed?

Thanks,

Your Nephew David X.

Dear David,

Your Retina iPhone is not doomed. Apple's Retina technology packs in tight pixels for resolution excellence and has been a certain winner. Uncle Rich's coverage of what Retina means is a must-read if you're interested in learning more about the subject. Today's rumor suggests that Apple might pack a new iPhone with even more pixels than ever.

Auntie is not going to take a position one way or the other on whether it makes sense to introduce another resolution style. All the developers she talked with this morning reacted with horror tinged with a certain intrigue when approached on the matter. Here are some basic facts...

If the iPhone 5 had used a non-retina display, its screen would have presented 181,760 pixels at a time, a quarter of the 727,040 it actually uses and a ninth of the 1,635,840 rumored pixels for the iPhone 6. But compared to a current iPad air with its 3,145,728 pixels that's just pocket change.

What developers are particularly worried about is having to stuff yet another image resolution into their already bloated applications. With the baseline iPad air packing only 16 GB, and apps having to already support image assets for non-retina and retina distributions on both tablet and phone families, it's hard to think that Apple would force yet another set of images into everyone's distributions.

Auntie is hoping that Apple will introduce native vector support for the "UIImage" class in iOS 8. Describing images as rescalable vectors would massively shrink those app bundles. Sure it takes a bit more processing time to scale and display vectors than to present simple images, but they'd provide a great way to design images that would automatically scale without blurriness no matter what kind of screen was thrown at them. In fact, popular developer icon resource Glyphish just announced a "Complete" bundle with full vector icon support, to scale up the art as needed. (Photographic images would still pose an issue, and they're never going to go away, unless Apple throws in some kind of magic fractal compression solution as well.)

Auntie suggests you wait a few weeks and then poke a developer after WWDC. The image APIs introduced this year will probably deliver some strong hints as to whether the rumored August product launches will stretch the definition of Retina or not.

This morning, Philip Elmer-Dewitt of Fortune.com writes that Apple has attained the number two spot in online retail. According to sales data, Apple has now passed Staples and Walmart. This achievement is partly due to an accounting change that now includes hardware sales along with iTunes and App Store revenue.

Part of Apple's 24% increase last year (to $18.3 billion) is due to an accounting change: For the first time, Apple threw online hardware sales into the mix alongside iTunes and App Store sales.

Amazon's retail offerings, of course, are considerably broader than Apple's. But as Asymco's Horace Dediu pointed out in a chart posted on Twitter last week, Apple has the edge in terms of online accounts. Those could come in handy if Apple, as rumored, is working on a new, iOS-based mobile payment service.

Even setting aside the new accounting change, the rise in Apple's revenues started several years ago, beginning its noticeable acceleration in 2010. You can see the respective retailer stories in the above chart sourced from the Wall Street Journal.

Are you a trashophobe? I am. I delay, delay, and delay some more when it comes to emptying my OS X trash because I always worry about throwing something away that I'm going to need to recover later. I've made enough mistakes in life that I'm really cautious about hitting that Empty Trash option.

This morning, when I checked my system in preparation for writing up this how-to, I found endless old software betas and more screenshots than you could possibly imagine clogging my trash can. In total, I had more than 100 GB sitting in my bin.

It was time for a deep cleanse.

For many Mac users, it's not immediately obvious how to check how much space your OS X trash occupies. You don't get much help from the Dock's contextual pop-up menu in Mavericks.

What you need to do instead is this. Open the trash to a new Finder window, and with that window frontmost select File > Get Info (Command-I) from the Finder menu. If you're like me, it may take a minute or two for Finder to finish calculating the size.

Once I realized exactly how much space I was using, I knew it was time to move on.

And now my Trash looks like this.

It won't last like that for long, but it's nice to have the confidence to make a fresh start every now and then.

Last night, my daughters and I spent several hours working our way through the first levels of Red Herring (free, with in-app purchases), a twistedly difficult new game from the creator of 7 Little Words and Moxie. The game presents you with 16 phrases at a time, which you categorize into 3 meaningful groups of 4, plus a "red herrings" column for the extras. If you're playing the most difficult level -- and the game isn't nearly as much fun unless you are -- it's a true challenge to sort out the meaningful groupings from the red herrings.

Like 7 Little Words, you get the initial puzzle pack for free. In Red Herring, this consists of 50 challenging puzzles to start with. Once hooked, you pay for additional packs. The puzzles can be fiendish, especially if you choose to work without the built-in categories or partial solutions offered by the easy and medium levels. 10 gateway hints are offered for free. After that you pay US$1.99 for unlimited hints.

My family had a ball with this -- it was tons of fun and involved lots of brainstorming. Throw the display over to a TV via Air Play and it's the perfect party game as well. We really liked it. Recommended.

Slingshot, the latest offering from the makers of Reflector and Air Parrot, introduces a paradigm for business-class screen sharing that pushes meeting software to new levels. If you're familiar with live-meeting/webcast services (like join.me, for example) you'll have encountered server-ware that enables you to share your desktop out to groups for demonstrations and presentations. The current generation provides support for phone chats, text messages, and so forth.

Slingshot takes all that functionality and bumps it up. Like its competitors, this software is aimed at the business and education markets, offering both one-to-one and one-to-many sharing. It adds some really splendid features like iOS screen sharing, individual OS X app screens, and participant control. With Slingshot, you can demo your apps and present screens anywhere in the world.

When testing, the TUAW team was really pleased by the quality of transmission and the ability of any participant to share materials from their system. Slingshot allows users to share individual desktop apps, their entire desktop, or to screen share from iOS via AirPlay. Each participant may opt in to use a local camera feed and microphone as well. (The service plan you select sets limits on how many cameras may participate.)

Our tests made it clear, however, this was early release software. We encountered audio drop outs, software crashes, and some odd video glitches. Despite those, we were all really impressed by the feature set and overall design quality. While the service is still young, it shows great promise.

Slingshot works by subscription. After a 30-day full feature trial, its plans range from 1-to-1 connections for $10/month ($110/year) to an enterprise-worthy model at $100/month ($1000/year) for up to 25 users, 5 camera feeds, and phone support. Budget-minded users might want to stick with join.me's free single-screen sharing service and Squirrel's existing Reflector app, but companies and schools with more spending flexibility will find Slingshot to offer a good feature set. We recommend you decide for yourself with the free month trial.

I own roughly a billion-and-one old-style iPhone and iPod cables, most of them not strictly "Made for iPhone" (MFi). They have seen hard use over the years, but they've been cheap and easy to replace. In February, I finally made the jump to Lightning when I purchased a refurbished pair of an iPad Air and a latest generation iPod touch. I love my new babies, with their lightness and bright screens (and, in the case of the touch, modern Wi-Fi and a 4" screen that is terrific for iOS development). However, their new cable system has been driving me nuts.

That's because the ease and cheapness of my existing stock of connectors no longer works with the new Lightning-based models. Purchasing extra MFi cables starts at about $14 for an Amazon Basics 3-foot cord.

I tend to use my portable battery packs with tiny 6-inch cables, which make less of a clutter in my backpack. Fortunately, a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across adapters on Amazon that convert Lightning to good old Euro-standard Micro-USB, which I normally use with my Kindle Fire. These adapters cost only about $2 each or less and slide onto the end of the Micro-USB cables, turning them into Lightning cables.

I was pretty wary about these adapters since iOS has become very picky with regards to non-MFI products, and some reviews state they have pretty high fail rates. Regardless, I plopped down my $6 and ordered a set of three, hoping that at least one adapter would pan out. Instead, I was delighted to find that all three worked fine.

I have tested these adapters with a variety of battery packs (from Antec, HyperJuice, and one that my husband picked up at the grocery store of all places...) and found that if the output amperage is sufficient to charge the device, the Lightning adapters work fine. I do caution you to carry a small pillbox or envelope for those times when you need to use the battery pack without the adapter, as they are quite small and easy to lose.

I'm pleased that my portable Lightning needs have been met for the time being with a minimum of cash outlay and a satisfying reliability. Given how widespread complaints have been about Lightning connector failures due to wear and use, I'll be keeping an eye on these adapters over time to see how they last.

Safari search is broken as anything. I use Safari, what, once a month, and it can't even work right? I have a page that has at least 20 times my search phrase. And it can't find it. I do CMD + F and then I type my term and then return. It's all keyboard.

Help.

Your nephew,

M.

Dear M,

Take a close look at the Safari search field. Do you see the little drop-down triangle to the right of the magnifying glass. Try clicking that and changing your search from "Starts With" to "Contains".

It's that time of year again! This morning, when Apple announced its WWDC dates and opened its new lottery system, potential attendees started going crazy attempting to book flights and hotel rooms in the hope they'd get lucky. This morning thousands of developers signed up for a chance to pay $1600 (not to mention those hotel and flights) to participate in one of the most valuable -- but exclusive -- events on the Apple social calendar.

Some tell me they're planning to travel regardless of whether they do or do not win that golden ticket. With a major swell in third party conferences and landing zones, WWDC has spilled out from the walls of Moscone into a much wider community event. Think of Burning Man, but with better dressed attendees... (If you like, you can skip the word "better" in that sentence.)

Some developers I talked to this morning were busy contemplating a startup selling souvenir badges. "Why feel outcast when you can purchase a fake attendee thing to hang around your neck. You can walk around SF looking like a real hipster!" I don't believe they were being entirely serious.

Meanwhile, others were busy carefully dissecting the new announcement art. Although we at TUAW still think it looks a bit like a horse's behind, we're curious about the suggestion it creates of display technology and pixels. Very intriguing if so.

What do you think of the artwork? Any secret clues? Share your thoughts in the comments and tell us what you think about the new WWDC sign up system. Love it? Hate it? Fear it? Also, if you have any third party events you're organizing or planning to participate in, please drop us a line! We'd love to hear about it.

Those of us who have been waiting for an Amazon Prime channel to finally show up on their Apple TV now have an explanation as to why it never arrived. Today Amazon introduced FireTV (US $99), an Amazon set-top box that seems perfectly situated to compete with Apple TV. Amazon cited a 350% growth in their video streaming service as their basis for entering this market.

With a quad-core processor, a dedicated GPU, and 2GB of onboard RAM, the new unit's specifications compare extremely favorably against both Apple's latest unit as well as Roku. Standout features include enhanced "MIMO dual-band WiFi", a slick user interface, built-in Karaoke, and voice search.

The box is about the same form factor as an Apple TV, with a small but much more solid-looking remote. The unit will offer many of the same channels, or "apps" in the Amazon parlance. These include Netflix, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, SHO Anytime, Bloomberg, and Vevo. Streaming music services including Pandora and iHeart Radio should follow soon after launch.

A feature called "X-Ray" will provide additional details about what you're watching as you watch it. This extra information is delivered to your Kindle Fire HDX tablet for tight product-line integration. There's also some sort of AirPlay equivalent on offer for watching slideshows of your tablet- and cloud-based photo collections.

Apple has to be taking notice of Amazon's latest move. From the Kindle to the TV, Amazon is striding boldly into an arena of consumer content that Apple first pioneered with iTunes and Apple TV. If anyone can transform content delivery from a hobby to a business, Amazon can.

FireTV's easier interaction style and spoken commands (yes, I struggle with entering text on Apple TV -- especially when I have to re-enter my WiFi network password) should set a new bar for streaming set top. Apparently there's even a mic built into the remote. I found the interface screenshots to be cleaner than the somewhat confusing menu system I currently see on my Apple TV unit.They're full of bright clear images that feel like a well thought out, navigable system -- and probably a bit of a WiFi hog.

So how will Apple react? Certainly that $99 price point for Apple TV has got to give or the Apple unit needs a major refresh. If Apple intends to stay in this "hobby", I would expect an interface overhaul and perhaps some Siri support to stay competitive. I also would think they'd need to open a third party SDK, the way that Amazon will with its open HTML and Android ecosystem. At launch, you'll be able to download and play Minecraft, The Walking Dead, Monsters University, the Amazon exclusive Sev Zero -- all on your TV.

Apple expert Keir Thomas, who brought us Mac Kung Fu a few years ago, has just launched a follow up volume: iPad and iPhone Kung Fu (US$12 ebook, US$19 print). With over 300 tips and tricks, there's a lot of useful knowledge in the book for any new iOS device owner.

Like its predecessor, this book reads best when browsed. It's not a sit down and move from the first to the last page in order kind of read. Instead, just open to a random spot and prepare to be inspired.

For me personally, I found the Mac version more valuable (simply because there are so many more tricks and tweaks possible in the relatively open desktop environment compared to the closed iOS system). However, leaving my personal background aside, I think this will be a valuable read for anyone relatively new to iOS or who wants to learn more about power-using their system.

There are plenty of gems to be found. For example, I didn't know you could delete comments on shared Photo Streams using tap-and-hold on the comment or that I could check the battery charge on my iPhone using the cloud.

iPad and iPhone Kung Fu will make a great gift for any tech Mom or Dad. Or just pick up a copy to enjoy in those spare minutes in your own life. I enjoyed browsing through the book and I think you will too.

Orderly (US$0.99) is exactly the kind of app that I normally don't write about in posts. It's a good example of a somewhat okay app that was released too early without proper testing and development, and lacking in any number of killer features.

Despite my reservations, I was encouraged to write this post to give a sense about apps that really don't fall into the "must buy" or "exquisitely awful" categories that you normally read about. The developer's pitch letter says,

This has great 5 star ratings so far. This app is unique in the sense, it purely uses iPhone gestures in the most comfortable and natural way to create and manage TODOs on your iPhone.

Sadly it does not deliver on this promise.

Orderly is a to do list. It's pretty enough (despite an unoriginal icon) and was built to leverage gesture-based interaction. It starts with 11 pages of tutorial overviews before you jump into the app itself.

Once in, the app is pretty easy to figure out despite those 11 pages. For example, you tap + to create a new to do list. There's even a pretty animated transition from the overviews to the detail screen.

Here's an example of where the app disappoints. In the following video, I attempt to navigate between the detail and overview screen. Keep in mind the principal of least astonishment as you watch this.

First, I end up tapping somewhere by accident and the screen flips on me. Then I use the un-pinch-to-zoom feature to go from overview to detail. That gesture is non-reciprocal. I cannot use similar gestures to move back to the previous state. Instead, I must tap the "<" button which, for iOS users, has a very specific meaning in navigation terms. That meaning is slightly distorted here. Finally, the actual animation back shows artifacts. None of this is damning -- the accidental touch at the start is entirely my fault -- but as reviewers we do notice the rest. We're looking for a slick interactive experience and this isn't it.

When I pulled out a hardware keyboard to test text entry, I received another surprise. The app doesn't take that hardware into account. The text remains "indented" into the portion of the screen normally usable when the on-screen keyboard is shown. If you ask why this video is "on its side," that's because the app was apparently never tested on an iPad, let alone with hardware text entry -- a natural accessory for entering large quantities of text in an app that revolves around text.

It's about at this point, where I normally make the review/don't review decision. There were enough quirks to prompt me to move onto the next item in my inbox. Only Dave's request that I showcase the exploration process brought this post to life. Had everything else worked properly, I would have tested the app over a few days in real life scenarios and then written up my overview.

An app as pretty as this deserves better. Despite really good intentions, the developer failed to deliver the kind of product that earns a TUAW recommendation.

Spectacle. We love it. That moment when technology changes and our minds are blown. It's easy to forget that many "one more thing" things were actually pretty boring: the iPod mini, Safari for Windows, the Power Mac G5.

Our current obsession with "new categories" derives from the heroin-like highs of the iPhone and iPad. While every year, Apple's laptop and desktop lines iteratively improve in user features and hardware, it's hard to get past that rush of newness that iOS delivered. Even iPod, the consumer device that more or less revolutionized Apple's marketplace in 2001, didn't produce the kind of magical expectations that iOS mobile did.

Is Apple still innovating? Is the Tim Cook catholic...er...in the woods...um...wait, I'm pretty sure there's a metaphor here that means "yes". Yes, Apple is still innovating. Since we haven't had our next holycrapdoodle moment, I'm going to guess that none of these internally developed products have been suitable or mature enough to bring to market yet.

There's the whole wearables thing... If you're willing to strap your iPhone 5S to your forehead, it's already here with its new-fangled motion chip supported by literally several apps! It's not what everyone was expecting, but it kind of positions Apple. There's also Apple TV, which keeps getting better but still doesn't "rule the living room" in any meaningful way. And then there's that car thing, which, *shrug*.

Back in reality, there are lots of hints in iOS 7 about possible future directions. The latest OS now supports hardware keyboards including control keys, and alt keys, and stuff like that. There's also massively expanded support for document containers like RTF. It all could potentially hint at a toasterfridge merging of iOS and OS X -- or not.

The problem is that two major innovations do not a corporate trend make. They were amazing but they may not have been defining as in specifically "Apple is the company whose new products always produce paradigm shift". Sure, we want more amazing but it's not something that it's reasonable to expect on a regular, scheduled basis. You know the meme. Meth, not even once.

Today, as 7.1 rolled in, major complainage could be heard echoing through the TUAW back channels. "OMG," the afflicted cried, "The world is at an end -- Apple has redesigned the shift key icons!" Our very own Dave Caolo even wrote about the change, saying that "It's a good change overall but will take some getting used to."

For comparison's sake, here are the old versions. It's not exactly Malum in se as if Apple committed murder or wore white after Labor Day. And, if you're paying attention, the back delete button also got a little refresh.

Me? I rather like 'em. The new shift and shift-lock icons are identifiable at a glance as being engaged and ready. They differ in color, with the lock adding an extra line underneath. And they've finally moved past those Unicode-y feeling outlines. These updates are fine.

To call the Dock-It Pro (US$159) quirky is to understate the oddness of this product. This Parle Innovation device offers a flip-case that enables users to treat their iPad as either a mini laptop or a very, very heavy tablet. A well-designed keyboard represents its strongest feature, but the weight, compatibility issues, and awkward usability let a promising product down.

If you own an iPad air, this is not the product for you. It works only with the iPad 2, 3, and 4 form factor. To use, you slide the top element in a few directions (there are hints printed onto the product because it doesn't quite open like a laptop) and place your iPad inside.

In my testing, this process went very smoothly and I was delighted to find a notch that allows me to connect my old-style charging cable to my iPad 2, even while docked to the unit.

The built-in Bluetooth keyboard is battery powered, using a standard micro-USB charger -- which is exactly as hard to plug in as any other similar device. It helps to have good eyes and a steady hand. Now that I own Lightning products, I'm finding my patience wearing thin with some of these USB ports.

Your iPad and your case charge independently. Unfortunately in "laptop" mode, the battery connector and the charging port notch are on opposite sides of the product, making cord organization a bit of a hassle. This is especially notable because in "laptop" mode represents the times when you're most likely to make extended use of the product.

The built-in keyboard is my favorite part of this unit. Yes, the keyboard is small -- but so are all keyboard cases for iPads. And yes, the keyboard is chickleted, but it's a pretty decent chicklet keyboard with decent travel.

There will probably never be a portable keyboard with proper mechanical switches and high key travel, so my evaluation was limited to: "Is this usable?" and "Does it feel pretty okay?" It certainly does. How good? About as good as it gets in the as the top of the middle to the bottom of the top of the keyboard case keyboard product pack. Decent.

A set of handy function keys lines the top of the keyboard. At the very left, where the ESC key normally sits, is a home key equivalent -- very handy. Other built-ins include brightness control, volume control with mute key, and a lock key.

The product is most suited to someone who needs to move between the touch world and text entry world, presumably in work areas where dictation is out of the question. Compared to my MacBook Air, which I bought refurbished, it's heavier, and less capable, and with the iPad, costs about the same. The target market that would best benefit from a device like this -- such as medical personnel and sales persons on the road -- would probably balk at the weight and awkward use. The product is not ruggedized in any way, so I wouldn't imagine taking it into a construction zone.

In the end, I think the Dock-It Pro is probably a much better product concept than an actual product for sale despite its appealing keyboard and fun transformer screen.

Joining our list of "things that shouldn't connect to your iPhone, but for some reason can," we bring you the Oral B smart toothbrush. This new device enables your dentist to spy on your mouth for the greater good. Oral B's new iOS-compatible Bluetooth-linked toothbrush tracks your brushing habits and collects data on every brush stroke.

A free companion app for iOS and Android will offer step-by-step guidance on brushing -- and possibly on how to breathe in and out, how to brush your hair, and how to walk across a room.

In related news, the NSA has issued a public statement that they will only monitor brushing metadata and will not seek specific toothbrush habit information without a warrant.

BroApp, a US$1.99 Android app that sends automated texts to friends, partners, and family is heading soon to iOS. The app acts on your behalf as a kind of techno-Cyrano. It messages your recipient with a fortune cookie of attention. "Thinking of you." "Can't wait to see you." "Good morning! I hope you have a great day!". It's also smart enough to disable itself when it's near a target's Wi-Fi network by detecting SSIDs.

The website advertises that the product "messages your girlfriend sweet things so you can spend more time with the Bros" (hence the name). And, already, Wired has taken a stance suggesting that some apps may turn us into sociopaths.

Me? I disagree. We already live in a Hallmark age. A pre-printed sentiment is now de rigueur for nearly every holiday and life event. If you inadvertently skip these plastic emotions, the social sanction can be be harsh. BroApp is no more unrealistic than the over-the-top sentimentality we witness on Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and New Years.

BroApp isn't creating a pathology. It just reflects the reality of one that already exists.

AnyFont (US$1.99) enables you to add custom True Type and Open Type fonts to your iOS device for use in any application. When I first heard about this app, I was curious. How could an app like this "break sandboxing," the security feature that keeps each app separate and safe?

I contact the developer, Florian Schimanke, who explained the steps the application takes. "[In iOS 7], it is possible to include fonts in configuration profiles. You can do this for example using the Apple Configurator from the Mac App Store," he wrote.

"[AnyFont] takes the fonts that are added to the app's storage by the user via iTunes file sharing or the 'Open in...' dialog and creates a configuration profile from it so it can be installed on the device. AnyFont hands over the newly created profile to Safari which then takes the user to the installation process. When finished, the user is then taken back to AnyFont."

I added a copy of the app to my iPod and dropped in a copy of a True Type (ttf) font I found on my Mac. I then launched the app and selected the font, which moved me through a few screens to the "Install Profile" pane you see in the image at the top of this post.

From there, I clicked Install and then consented to having the profile install the font. A further tap to "Done" and I was ready to start using my new font. What's more, once installed, the font appears in the General > Profiles settings, making it simple to remove the item should you change your mind in the future or wish to tidy up your device.

A visit to Pages showed the new font was installed and ready for use.

If you regularly perform content creation on iOS, this clever two-dollar utility will expand your font horizon. I found it easy to use and that it delivered exactly the functionality promised.